Georgy Malenkov

Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov (8 January 1902-14 January 1988) was Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR from 6 March 1953 to 8 February 1955, succeeding Joseph Stalin and preceding Nikolai Bulganin.

Biography
Georgy Malenkov was born in Orenburg, Russian Empire in 1902, and he joined the Red Army in 1919 and fought in the Russian Civil War in Turkestan. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1920 and became a close associate of Joseph Stalin. He rose through the party ranks and was deeply involved in the Great Purge from 1934 to 1938. During World War II, he served on the Defense Council. In 1946, he became a member of the Politburo and a deputy Prime Minister. Generally considered the most likely of Stalin's successors, on Stalin's death in 1953 he became Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Though he quickly tried to distance himself from his erstwhile mentor through pronouncing more liberal views, he was effectively outmaneuvered by Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization campaign, which served to highlight his involvement in Stalin's terror. After a failed attempt to oust Khrushchev as leader of the anti-party group, he was expelled from the Central Committee in 1957, and was sent to recover from the stress of Moscow politics as manager of the Ust-Kamenogorsk hydroelectric plant in eastern Kazakhstan. He died in Moscow in 1988.